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Crimson Lions
Origins and History Exiles and Adventurers The earliest roots of the Third legion can be traced back to the warlike Terran state of Jurfik. Located in the north of the Albyonic territories once called Angle-land, Jurfik’s warlike people had not only survived the wars of the Age of Strife, they had in fact thrived. When the Emperor revealed himself to Mankind, Jurfik’s empire was at its zenith. From its heart in Jurfik itself, it stretched out across the north of Terra, spanning much of Albyon and Hibernia, either as conquered territory or vassal states, western Norsca and Frysa. At the head of this empire were the warrior kings of Jurfik. While they ruled their empire alongside their Thegns, these kings were warriors first and foremost, as evidenced by their frequent wars with the realms of Ursh, the Jermani and the Suomen nomads. However, Jurfik’s succession was frequently disputed as, upon the king’s death, rival petty kings would each seek to install himself as king of all Jurfik or to carve out a larger realm for himself from amongst Jurfik’s vassal kingdoms. The resulting civil wars were often brief and brutal, with one side rapidly emerging as the victor and the losers being forced to flee along with their supporters. These exiles often sought to find pay as mercenaries in the armies of Terras other rulers, with many winding up in the armies of Kalaggan, the tyrant of Ursh. However, when his realm was conquered by the armies of the Emperor, the exiles from Jurfik found another employer: the Emperor of Mankind himself. While many of the warriors who took up employment as mercenaries in the Emperor’s armies were too old to attempt the process that would transform them into legionaries, the youngest of their number were not. So, while their elders became soldiers of the Imperial Army, these young warriors found a place in the Emperor’s armies as warriors of his Legiones Astartes and while some were taken into the Ist legion, the vast majority were recruited to the IIIrd legion. The Conquest of Jurfik For years, this continued, with young warriors coming from Jurfik to serve the Emperor in his legions and with this trickle of recruits, the IIIrd legion gradually grew and because of its use as a source of warriors, the Emperor left Jurfik as it was. However, in the final decades of the Unification Wars the Emperor’s eyes fell on Jurfik, one of the last techno-barbarian states that was still unconquered. Seven years prior to his first invasion, as the IIIrd legion was fighting in the Shakletian deserts, an exile named Hakon “the Red” had come to seek service in the Emperor’s armies. Hakon “the Red” was a scion of Jurfik’s royal house and had, upon the death of King Eirik “Blood-axe”, risen up to try and seize the throne of Jurfik for himself. However, Hakon’s small kingdom was unable to raise an army anywhere near the size of that raised by his rival, King Knut, who defeated him in battle, exiling Hakon and his Hirth. Seeing in the Emperor a chance to win the kingdom he had initially lost on the battlefield, Hakon swore allegiance to the Master of Mankind and in exchange the Emperor promised to win Hakon’s kingdom for him. As was his custom, the Emperor first sent envoys to try and negotiate a settlement whereby the men of Jurfik would join their cause to his. At first, the men of Jurfik listened. However, when the envoys suggested that, as part of this new settlement, they would send annual tribute to the Emperor and Hakon “the Red”, who had sworn himself to the Emperor, would replace King Knut as ruler of Jurfik, the men of Jurfik grew enraged. King Knut’s younger brother, Prince Rollon, hacked off the envoy’s hands and, after the bleeding had been staunched, King Knut told them: You are not suggesting a partnership of equals. You are suggesting conquest by another name. Well if that’s what your master wants, I have something I’d like you to tell him. If that truly is his intent, then we are ready to meet him on a field of his choice and settle this the old way. If he wants to conquer our lands, lands that we ruled before my grandfather’s grandfather was born, then he can do it the same way as everyone else and pay in blood for it. '' The gauntlet had been thrown down, and the Emperor was ready to pick it up. He sent a large force to subdue Jurfik, mainly composed of Imperial Army units drawn from Ursh and the Jermani, who had long ago learned to hate the warriors of Jurfik. However, when the two armies clashed at the battle of Mount Batonicus, the Emperor’s force was destroyed. The men of Jurfik used their skirmishers to lead the Emperor’s forces on and on, further into a mountain valley from which there was only one exit. Once they were too far in to escape, the trap snapped shut. The warriors of Jurfik’s Hibernian and Caledonian vassal realms swarmed down into the valley and into the rear of the Emperor’s armies, completely surrounding them and slaughtering all save a few whose lives were spared so that they could tell their Emperor what had happened. However, far from breaking the Emperor’s resolve to see Jurfik conquered, this defeat strengthened it. Changing his planned campaigns to account for this defeat, the Emperor began to assembled a second invasion force. However, he would lead this second invasion in person and at its spearhead would not be crack units of the Imperial Army, nor even the famed Thunder Warriors but the entire Fifth legion of the Adeptus Astartes, an enormous force to send against one realm. This second invasion was far more successful and inflicted a number of defeats upon the proud warriors of Jurfik. Eventually, outside the hive of Jurk upon the crossing known as Sternfald Bridge, the warriors of Jurfik turned and fought the Imperial forces in a pitched battle, intent on going out in one last blaze glory and joining their comrades in the halls of their gods. The battle that followed was vast and bloody, with the blood of those who had fallen pooling and flowing down the dry river bank on either side of the crossing to form a new river beneath the bridge that gradually became choked with the bodies of the slain. At the centre of this whirlwind of slaughter were King Knut and his Hirt, standing in the centre of the bridge, fighting beneath the raven flag of Jurfik and cutting down any who attempted to cross it. The climax of the battle came at dawn on the second day, when King Knut and his Hirt charged the Emperor and the elite of the Vth legion. As the leaders of the two armies met, the Emperor beneath his eagle standard and Artorus beneath the raven of Jurfik, their bodyguards clashed with a terrible roar that could be heard for miles. While the Emperor and King Knut were both skilled warriors, the outcome of their duel was not decided by martial skill. King Knut was not killed by the Emperor, as is often claimed, but by an unnamed Prussan Jaegar who put a precision shot through Knut’s neck, leaving the King of Jurfik to fall down to the Emperor's feet. While Knut’s Hirt and the nobility of Jurfik launched a last-ditch attempt to rescue their King’s body and the battle raged on for another seven hours before the warriors of Jurfik conceded defeat, King Knut’s death was a turning point. The Emperor had won. However, when the remaining warriors of Jurfik knelt behind Prince Rollon, the last surviving scion of Jurfik’s royal house aside from Hakon “the Red”, the Emperor did not order their execution as many had expected. Instead, seeing the marital potential of these proud warriors, he offered them a choice: they could either join his growing armies and fight for him or they could refuse and die as free men. It is likely that many would have chosen the latter. However, out of respect for him, the Emperor refused to allow any desecration of King Knut’s body and instead returned it to the men of Jurfik so that they could bury it in accordance with their custom. A grand funeral procession followed, with the remaining members of King Knut’s hirth carrying the ship on which their King’s body was laid out. Their path to the Great Northern Lake was lined by warrior of Lightning Bearers on one side and the recently created Third legion(as of yet unnamed and formed from exiles of Jurfik), a last act of respect by the Emperor for the dead King. After setting the ship on fire and pushing it out onto the water of the Lake, once it had passed out of sight, the last of King Knut’s warriors knelt to the Emperor and swore their sword’s to him, for by his actions they had come to see him as a man of honour, as worthy of their service as their former king had been. '''Blood Wolves' Many thousands of these warriors who swore their swords to the Emperor would undergo the gene implantation required to turn them from normal men into legionaries. Where before the Third legion had been overshadowed by many of their brother legions, even many who were founded later than them, this fresh influx of recruits brought their numbers up to the point where they were on par with most of their brother legions. However, the Third legion still lacked the experience that many other legions had won during the Unification Wars. While the Third legion had officially been given their trial by fire in the Shakletian deserts, the vast majority of the Third legion were untested in war, new recruits to the legions, with only a select few having fought on Terra. Therefore, the true trial by fire of the Third legion would be in the Imperial vanguard of force sent to conquer Luna. Launched at Luna in earth based rockets, the Third legion were the first of the astartes to land on Luna's surface after the Fifteenth legion's scouting forces. The initial positions in front of the Third legion fell in minutes, overrun by the legionaries who fought with a savagery in close quarters combat that would remain unrivaled among the legions until the discovery of Raktra. Storming on as the other legions began to land behind them, the Third legion fought their way inside the underground complexes of Luna. There, they met the monstrous half-machine beasts that the Gene-cults had created to protect themselves, easily capable of ripping through the power armour worn by the legionaries of the Third. Yet they did little to stop or even slow the Third legion, who charged heedless into their ranks as the warriors of Jurfik had done for centuries. As the other legions followed the path carved out by the Third into the Gene-cults complexes to begin the systematic annihilation of resistance on Luna, the Emperor received a communication from the Gene-cults, begging him to "call off his wolves" and offering an unconditional surrender. When they Third legion emerged from the subterranean passages of Luna, they were a terrible sight to behold. Their armour was dented and cracked, much of it(their lower legs, arms and in some cases mouths espacially) was covered in blood and many of them carried chainblades whose teeth could no longer move because they were clogged by clotting blood and many carried skulls taken as trophies from the fallen defenders of Luna, which they would later encase in silver to wear on their armour. By the far the greatest trophy taken by the Third was the head of Cardinal Tang, which they would hang from their banner. It was from this appearance when they emerged from Luna's tunnels that the Third legion earned their name, the Blood Wolves. The Great Crusade The Razing of Jurkfik The Blood Wolves had fought in the Great Crusade for scarcely three years when they received the Emperor ordered them to return to Terra. While in the later years of the Great Crusade, elements of the Halycon Wardens would be recalled to the homeworld for its defence, this was no such honourable recall. Instead, they had been recalled to fulfill a darker purpose. They had been called back to sanction their own homeland. Crowned king of Jurfik, Hakon the Red had soon grown to chafe under the shackles imposed on his rule by the Emperor. Just three short years after the Emperor won him his crown, Hakon declared Jurfik's independence from the newly formed Imperium, slaughtering his Imperial overseers. For four months, the warriors of Jurfik waited, standing ready for when the Emperor's hosts inevitably returned. Finally, as what passed for the Terran winter began to set in, the Emperor's response came and the skies of Terra began to rain fire. The Blood Wolves had come. Rather than launch a conventional assault, the Blood Wolves had decided to launch an all out drop pod assault for maximum shock. So it was that hundreds of drop pods burned their way through Terra's atmosphere and slammed down amidst the outer precincts of Jurk, Jurfik's capital. From out of the drops pods adamantium bellies emerged thousands of roaring legionaries, their bolters screaming and chainblades howling. While the warriors of Jurfik had fought the legions before, those had been the sober warriors of the Fifth legion, not the roaring, bloodthirsty maniacs of the Blood Wolves who now butchered their way through the streets of Jurfik's capital, their gunmetal armour painted red by the blood of those they had slain. Within the space of four hours, King Hakon the Red had been killed and vox messages were being sent to the Third begging them to cease and offering unconditional surrender. However, the Third did not stop. Instead, the slaughter continued for the Blood Wolves rage at this betrayal was only made greater by it being their own people. They felt forsaken, orphaned, homeless and so were determined to enact a bloody revenge, unleashing not only their own impeccable anger but also their full arsenal of chemical and nuclear weaponry. By the time the sun began to go down on Terra, Jurfik's hives burned with chemical fire whose choking black smoke rose up to block out the sun. The Blood Wolves lust for blood vengeance had been slaked. The Orphaned Following the razing of Jurfik, the Blood Wolves returned to the Great Crusade. However, this time it was not in the gunmetal armour of years gone by. They now wore armour painted grey by ash, the lower legs and arms red by the blood of their own people. L'egion Organisation and Structure' Legion Recruitment The Blooding The gene-seed of every legionary is vital. It is through their gene-seed that a normal human adolescant is transformed into one of the astartes, a warrior without peer and without it and the effects it has upon the human body, the Legiones Astartes would be nowhere near as fearsome in war as they are. However, there was no official method that was used in order to activate the gene-seed within an aspirant and so each of the legions adopted its own way of doing so, often rooted in its homeworld's culture. In the Crimson Lions, the process by which the gene-seed is activated in an aspirant's body is known as the Blooding. The Blooding is the final test of an aspirant and only the toughest and most ferocious of Mycenae's young warriors reached it. They are cast out into the wilds of Mycenae to fend for themselves, with no weapons save a small dagger and their bare hands and the entire plethora of Mycenae's deadly fauna hunting them just as they are in turn hunting it. Only if the aspirant slays one of Mycenae's many predators and brings its body back up Mount Æsgard will the Lion's Gate open for him. However, while outwardly this test may appear to be purely one of martial skill it also tests the mental fortitude and endurance of an aspirant. All the while that he is hunting and being hunted by his quarry, the aspirant's body will be battered by the elements and worn down by exhaustion, for to fall asleep alone in Mycenae's wilds is to invite death. Many an aspirant has fallen asleep in the snow to never wake up again or been overwhelmed by one of Mycenae's predators as exhaustion and his foe's ferocity overcomes him. Only those who are worthy of joining the ranks of the Crimson Lions overcome their body's exhaustion and frailty to the elements to battle against the predators hunting them and prevail. Once he has slain the predator, the aspirant then drags its body back up Mount Æsgard where the Lion's Gate will open for him, as he has proved himself worthy. He and those other aspirants who succeeded in their hunts will then drink from a bowl containing the blood of the hunter they killed mingled with the blood of one of the Cneassai who will speak the words "You knelt as cubs. Now rise as lions". So it is that they are blooded and the gene-seed within their bodies activated, turning them into true warriors of the Crimson Lions, ready to take their places in the ranks of the getae and fight as gods of war. Exemplary Battles Battles go here Category:Legions Category:Loyalist